BUGHOUSE

Martha Clarke is an American theater director and choreographer noted for her multi-disciplinary approach to theater, dance, and opera. A graduate of Juilliard, she danced with the Anna Sokolow Company before becoming a founding member of Pilobolus Dance Theatre. She has choreographed for Nederlans Dans Theater, American Ballet Theatre, Rambert Dance Company, and The Martha Graham Company, among others. As a director, Ms. Clarke’s original productions include Garden of Earthly Delights, Vienna: Lusthaus, The Metamorphosis, Miracolo d’Amore, Endangered Species, An Uncertain Hour, The Hunger Artist, Belle Epoque, Vers La Flame, and Kaos.  She directed Alice’s Adventures Underground, a collaboration with Christopher Hampton for the Royal National Theater UK, and A Midsummer’s Night Dream for A.R.T. Opera productions include Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Cosi Fan Tutti for Glimmerglass, and Tan Dun’s Marco Polo and Gluck’s Orfeo and Eurydice for New York City Opera, among many others. She created L’Altra Meta del Cielo for La Scala Ballet (2012). Her production of The Threepenny Opera (2014) was at the Atlantic Theater Co. She is a resident artist at the Signature Theater where she directed and choreographed Chéri (2013), based on AThe novel by Colette and Angel Reapers (2016), a collaboration about the Shakers, with Alfred Uhry. Most recently God’s Fool (2022) a song cycle, based on the life of St Francis was presented by La Mama. Awards: Ms. Clarke is the recipient of a MacArthur fellowship, a Drama Desk Award, two Obie Awards, two Joe A.Callaway awards, the Dance Magazine Award, the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement, two Lucille Lortel awards and the Flora Roberts award from the Dramatists Guild.

Beth Henley is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and professor. Her plays include Crimes of The Heart (Pulitzer Prize in Drama and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best American Play), The Wake of Jamey Foster, The Miss Firecracker Contest, Am I Blue, The Lucky Spot, The Debutante Ball, Abundance, Control Freaks, Impossible Marriage, Family Week, Ridiculous Fraud, The Jacksonian, Laugh, and The Unbuttoning. Her plays have been produced on Broadway and across the country as well as internationally and translated into many languages. Her new play, Downstairs Neighbor has had a workshop at Berkeley Repertory and NYSF and her other new play Myth Murder will have its first public reading produced by The Tent in November, 2025. Ms. Henley screenplays include Crimes of The Heart (nominated for an Academy Award), Nobodies Fool, The Miss Firecracker Contest, and David Byrne’s True Stories. Ms. Henley is a recipient of The American Theatre Wing 1998 Award for Distinguished Achievement in Playwriting, Susan Smith Blackburn Finalist for Crimes of The Heart and Ridiculous Fraud; Richard Wright Literary Excellence Award 2000; New York Stage and Film Honoree, 2007, ATHE Career Achievement Award, 2010, and the American Theater Award at the William Inge Festival, 2017.
Originally from Mississippi, Ms. Henley lives between Los Angeles and Levering cherry orchard in Ararat, Virginia. 

John Kelly is a performance and visual artist. He has created over 30 performance works that dramatize the lives of artists and social outsiders and the social and cultural and realities they navigate. Subjects have included the history of gay persecution, tattoo culture, the Berlin Wall, the AIDS pandemic, Mythology, expressionistic film, and character studies based on Egon Schiele, Caravaggio, Antonin Artaud, and Joni Mitchell. Underneath The Skin, based on the gay novelist and tattoo artist Samuel Steward, was commissioned by Skirball Cultural Center. Other works have been commissioned by MET Live Arts, Baryshnikov Arts, The Kitchen, La MaMa, Lincoln Center, NY Live Arts, BAM’s Next Wave Festival, and London’s Tate Modern. He has received 2 Bessie Awards, 2 Obie Awards, 2 NEA Awards American Masterpieces Awards, an Alpert Award, a Visual AIDS Vanguard Award, an Elliot Norton Best Actor Award, and a Mabou Mines Ruthie Award. Fellowships include The American Academy in Rome, The Radcliffe Institute, The Guggenheim Foundation, The Sundance Theatre Institute, The Good Works Foundation, Art Matters, Inc., and USA Artists. Creative residencies include Yaddo, MacDowell, The Park Avenue Armory, Civitella Ranieri, The Bogliasco Foundation, and The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.  Kelly’s credits as actor and vocalist include the Broadway production of James Joyce’s The Dead (Bartell D’Arcy) Christopher Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage (Cupid) directed by Neil Bartlett at A.R.T; Rinde Eckert’s Orpheus X (Agent/Persephone) at A.R.T. and TFANA, and Dog Days (Dog Man) an opera by David Little, both directed by Robert Woodruff; The Threepenny Opera (Street Singer/Filch) and God’s Fool (Devil) both directed by Martha Clarke; Uncivil Wars: Moving w Brecht & Eisler (Vice Viceroy) directed by David Gordon; Arjuna’s Dilemma (Krishna) an oratorio by Douglas J. Cuomo directed by Robin Guarino; The Echo Drift (Moth) a chamber opera by Mikael Karlsson directed by Mallory Catlett; The Clerk’s Tale (Spencer Reese) a film by James Franco.  Kelly’s visual artwork is based in self-portraiture, including drawing, painting, and video; two of his films are in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art. His graphic memoir A Friend Gave Me A Book will be exhibited at P·P·O·W Gallery January 9 – February 21, 2026.